12 Days of Blogmas: 12 Gaming Memories

Hey! Listen. You know that popular Christmas song called the 12 Days of Christmas? Athena over at AmbiGaming came up with a cool holiday themed community collaboration idea to gamify that kinda-as-annoying-as-Navi song (that we all love or hate). Basically, it’s a countdown list each day that ends up with 364 items, times however many bloggers do this, at the end of the event (something like that… my maths is bad). Be warned that my singing voice is terrible, but here we go, eh!

🎶 On the 1st day of Blogmas, the gamers said to me: What are 12 favourite gaming memories? 🎶

1) Kirby’s Dream Course (SNES) – One childhood summer vacation, I played this game with my mom, who normally doesn’t like video games. It was a great bonding experience and we had so much fun taking turns! I remember her joking and saying this golf-like game was just the right speed for her slow reflexes. Oh and she always got me to beat the boss at the end of the game for her since that part required my superior gaming reflexes.

My mom was definitely better at this game than I was.

2) Star Fox Adventures (GameCube) – Not sure why everyone seems to hate this game, but I rather enjoyed playing as Fox McCloud outside of his fighter… and on a planet filled with cool dinosaurs… ZOMG! Also, David Wise music… but I digress. In one area, Fox has to complete the Test of Strength against the leader of the LightFoot clan. This requires you to rapidly press the A button to push MuscleFoot into a pit in under 1 minute. The rapid button press mechanic is something I always struggle with in games, and I could not get past this part for the life of me (Yep. I suck at Mario Party).

Thankfully, my dad took an interest in my gaming dilemma and decided to help out. He sprayed the A button on my controller with WD-40 (his secret weapon as he says), and pwned that part for me.

I’m just not good at button mashing.

3) Grand Theft Auto Liberty City Stories (PSP) – I lived in the middle of nowhere while growing up so I had a 45 minute bus ride to and from school every day. I remember during one trip a friend and I tried out the local multiplayer on this game. So much fun! There was this one moment I’ll always remember…

I was innocently driving around and hunting for my friend (so I could murder him). Before long, I was shocked when he suddenly came into view. He was standing on top of his car, and to my horror, he had a rocket launcher aimed my way. Thinking for sure that I was doomed, I said “what the hell” and floored it towards him, launching my car off a ramp on the way. What happened next could be best described as a Matrix moment. It was as if time itself slowed for a minute…

While I was in the air, the rocket he fired at me harmlessly zoomed by, just underneath my car. Then with a satisfying clunk, my car landed on top of my friend, killing him instantly. HA! That was the best “I pwned you!!” moment ever.

Yep. The GTA series is a guilty gaming pleasure of mine. I was thrilled to see a portable version!

4) Beyond Good and Evil (PS2) – I remember very little about this game other than I felt it was a masterpiece after I beat it way back in 2004. One thing I do remember clearly is having a problem with the last boss. During one phase of the fight the controls are reversed and I just couldn’t wrap my head around it. So you know what I did? I held my controller upside down, and it worked like a charm! I’ll call that a life hack.

I wish I remembered more about this game…

5) World of Warcraft (PC) – My 8 years total with this game is a blur of mostly wonderful memories. I’ll never forget the awesome pre-Wrath of the Lich King expansion event.

As part of the Scourge Invasion, the developers released an infectious undead plague debuff into the land of Azeroth. The debuff was easily spread and your character (along with NPCs) turned into a member of a special zombie faction whenever they fell to the disease. As a zombie, you could attack everything and talk with any other zombie player, regardless of faction (normally Horde and Alliance players can’t talk to each other). Around the last of it, massive cities had been reduced to undead infested wastelands. There were even cool psychology articles released about how players were behaving similarly to how humans behave when plagues hit the real world (avoiding high populated areas, etc.)

Players either loved it, or whined endlessly about the disruption to their regular questing and whatnot. I was in the “OMG!! This is awesome!!” camp. It was just a fun limited time event, so seriously, lighten up people… But yeah, I have fond memories of my zombified Alliance Night Elf Druid attacking the Horde’s Crossroads town, alongside zombified members of the Horde faction. It was a surreal experience!

For the Scourge!

6) Resident Evil 4 (GameCube) – I’ll likely go on about this at length in another post, but the Resident Evil movies are actually what got me interested in playing the games… and the 4th one was my first experience with the video game series. I had no idea who she was at the time (I’ve since played most of the Resident Evil series so I know more), but when Ada Wong made her badass grand entrance, my very first shero crush happened. I’ll never forget how awesome she is! High School me looked up to the lady in red, and she was the face of my teenage blogger identity. This was long before I knew who Lightning Farron was.

She does seem kinda Lightning-like…

7) Final Fantasy X (PS2) – I know I talk about Final Fantasy XIII a lot (all three XIII games may or may not make an appearance in this post *whistles innocently*), but X was actually the first Final Fantasy game I ever played and beat. And damn, the real “last boss” gave me one heck of a hard time. Pwning Braska’s Final Aeon took forever (and the reloading of a save file to level up my poor peeps) but it was the best feeling ever when he finally went down. I’ll never forget the freaking epic metal song that played during the fight.

Seriously. The badass music made the whole fight feel so freaking epic!!

“Go now, if you want itAn otherworld awaits youDon’t you give up on itYou bite the hand that feeds you

8) Super Mario 64 (N64) – I have no idea what the hell Mario says when he throws the King Koopa, but swinging Bowser by the tail was one of my most amusing memories from the Nintendo 64 era of gaming.

“Something… something… Bowser!”

9) The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time (N64) – I’m never, ever gonna forget that epic feeling I got from pulling the Master Sword for the first time. Those first 3 childhood dungeons were just the beginning….

I could use a 7-year nap right about now.

10) Final Fantasy XIII (PS3) – As much as I LOVED watching my shero Lightning knock Snow on his ass once or twice, I really enjoyed the scenes where they started opening up to each other. Snow’s not a bad guy… just a tad bit overzealous with the whole wannabe hero thing.

Aw! Snow’s like the annoying bro I always wanted.

11) Final Fantasy XIII-2 (PS3) – This game’s plot is complex, my friends. There’s time paradoxes, immortal people, reincarnation, and a Goddess of Death involved. I enjoyed the part when Searh and Noel catch up to Lightning and she explains what the hell is going on… mostly.

Gotta keep fighting forward, no matter what happens.

12) Lightning Returns (PS3) – Just… dat ending changed my life, man….

….😭😭😭

Whoa! That was a wonderful trip down video game memory lane. Be sure to check out the host Goddess of Wisdom’s version of the song thus far (including links to other participants, eh).

⚡Thanks for reading!⚡

If for some odd reason you want to read more of my posts, you can find a somewhat organized (and usually up to date) archive of my ramblings… I mean, articles here!

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LightningEllen

I'm a wannabe writer and an avid video gamer with a slight (okay, maybe extreme) Amiibo addiction. I'm from the coastal province of Nova Scotia in Canada, eh. When I'm not gaming, I have a steady job thing I have to go to. It pays for the gaming thing though. :)
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28 thoughts on “12 Days of Blogmas: 12 Gaming Memories”

Looks like you’ve got some great memories from some great games there one of my favourite gaming memories was when I was playing Mortal Kombat 1 with my Dad I must’ve been about 8 and I just kept juggling him in the air until he died he got so salty it was hilarious.

GTAIII, man…. I definitely used it for stress relief. And that was an amazing pwning of your friend! yikes haha It’s great to see titles like Kirby and StarFox on the list, too! Too bad about Beyond Good and Evil… I’ve heard good things about it, and would press you for details otherwise 😛

GTAIII, Vice City, and San Andreas were HUGE stress relievers for teenage me. I’m kinda excited to see what GTA6 will bring to the series when it happens.

Thanks! I would absolutely love to babble to you about every detail of Beyond Good and Evil’s probably epic story. It’s so weird how I hardly remember anything about it. Jade is a badass and the last boss was tricky. That’s all I got…. And this is why I blog! To remember the games I play 😛

#8 there was a huge debate in N64 Magzine here in the UK about that. It raged in the reader’s letters section for months. Some said it was “So long, dear Bower!” Others went for, “So long, King Bowser!” I think it’s the former. Because Bowser is a dear, really.

Oh my goodness, I also could not get past the test of strength in Star Fox Adventures! I would always just play up to that point and then start the game over after I tried enough times and couldn’t get past it. Glad to know I’m not the only one who couldn’t press A fast enough!

Your dad sprayed the controller with WD40? Genius! I never thought about doing that haha. I love how you and your mom played Kirby’s Dream Course together too! I don’t think I ever beat the final boss…